Hans Christian Oersted was born in Rudkobing on August 14, 1777 to Soren Christian Oersted and Karen Hermansen. His father was an apothecary and did not have the time to properly raise Oersted or his brother so they were raised by a German wigmaker. When he turned eleven, he went to work for his father at his pharmacy, where his first interest in science began. Without any prior schooling, except what he learned informally through others, he passed the entrance exam to University of Copenhagen, where he graduated with honors. In 1806, he later became a professor of physics at the same university. Although he was both a Danish philosopher and physicist who made contributions to the scientific community including the isolation of aluminum, he is best known for his discovery that linked electricity and magnetism.
While lecturing his class at the University of Copenhagen in 1819, he accidentally came upon this connection. Some people say that this discovery was more of an accident, than one based upon research and knowledge, which may have some truth. In the 1780’s Colomb hypothesized that electricity and magnetism were two very different laws, he felt this was impossible. Oersted also studied Naturphilosophie under Schelling, which stemmed his belief in the view that nature is systematic and unified. Because he looked at the study and practice of science as religion, he was motivated to find a connection that would link different scientific fields. Although the actual discovery was an accident, Oersted was on the right track. He had all the right materials and the right general idea.
One afternoon Hans Christian Oersted was attempting to demonstrate to his students that moving charges did not make a magnetic field. Oersted had planned to demonstrate this by showing the heating of a wire by an electric current. He also wanted to demonstrate magnetism. In order to do this, he provided a compass needle mounted on a wooden stand. Oersted noticed that every time the electric current was switched on the compass needle moved. This is a new discovery because previously no one had known that when electric current passed through a wire, it produced a magnetic field. Before this, it was generally accepted that wire carried an electric current. The compass needle’s movement proved the magnetic field. This can be demonstrated with a compass and a magnet. The wire carrying the electric current acts like a magnet, which would cause the needle on the compass to move.
Auroras have been emitting in our, and other planets’ skies as long as the Solar System has been in motion. In 1619 A.D., Galileo Galilei coined the term "aurora borealis" after Aurora, the Roman goddess of morning. He had the misconception that the auroras he saw were due to sunlight reflecting from the atmosphere. (Angelopoulos, 2008). In 1741, Hiorter and Celsius noted that the polar aurora is accompanied by a disturbance of the magnetic needle. In 1820, Hans Christian Oersted discovered electromagnetism. André-Marie Ampére deduced that magnetism is basically the force between electric currents. In 1851, Samuel Schwabe, a German amateur astronomer, announced the discovery of the 11-year sunspot cycle, and in 1859, Richard Carrington in England observed a violent and rapid eruption near a sunspot; 17 hours later a large magnetic storm began. In 1900-3, Kristian Birkeland experiments with beams of electrons aimed at a magnetized sphere ("terrella") in a vacuum chamber. The electrons hit near the magnetic poles, leading him to propose that the polar aurora is created by electron beams from the Sun. Birkeland also observes magnetic disturbances associated with the aurora, suggesting to him that localized "polar magnetic storms" exist in the auroral zone. In 1958, Eugene Parker (Chicago) proposes the theory of the solar wind. 1981, High resolution images are obtained by Lou Frank's group in Iowa of the entire auroral zone, using the Dynamics Explorer satellite. (Stern & Peredo, 2005) This is the major timeline of how auroras came to be discovered and understood.
Nikola Tesla (Physicist, Inventor, Futurist) – Nikola Tesla was a Serbian American electrical engineer, inventor, physicist, futurist and mechanical engineer who was recognized for his assistance in the proposal of alternating current (AC) for the system of electricity. He was born on July 10, 1856 in Smiljan, Austrian Empire which is presently known as Croatia. His father was named Milutin Tesla and was an Orthodox Priest. While his mother, Duka Tesla, was good in making home mechanical appliances, craft tools and has the skill to memorize Serbian poems.
and opened doors for later scientists that were in his field of organic synthesis. He was a
Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm on October 21, 1833. By the age of 17 he was fluent in Swedish, Russian, French, English and German. Early in his life he had a huge interest in English literature and poetry as well as in chemistry and physics. Alfred's father disliked his interest in poetry and found his son rather introverted. In order to widen Alfred's horizons his father sent him to different institutions for further training in chemical engineering. During a two-year period he visited Sweden, Germany, France and the United States. He came to enjoy Paris the best. There he worked in the private laboratory of Professor T. J. Pelouze, a famous chemist. He also met the young Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero who, three years earlier, had invented nitroglycerine.
Landscape architecture has been around since the beginning of time, but it was not until Frederick Law Olmsted came along that the idea of integrating design into the landscape with plants, water, and structures that it turned into a thriving profession. To many, Olmsted is considered “a pioneer in the profession of landscape architecture, an urban planner, and a social philosopher, one of the first theoreticians and activists behind the national park and conservation movements” (Kalfus 1). Growing up, he did not ever graduate from formal schooling and just sat in on a few classes while at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut. Instead, he acquired his education from being out in the world through traveling and reading. He had a hard childhood. His mother died when he was just four years old and on his journeys around the world to Europe and China, he became sickly with seasickness, paralysis of the arm, typhoid fever, apoplexy, sumac poisoning, and at times suffered from depression. For many years he went on a journey within himself to find out whom he really was and what he wanted to do with his life, career wise. Frederick had one brother, John Hull, who died in 1857. This left Olmsted feeling empty and at loss of what to do. That was when Calvert Vaux came and filled the space in Olmsted’s life that his brother left. Vaux convinced Olmsted to enter the Central Park Commissioner’s design competition with their design entitled the “Greensward Plan.” With the success in that project, Olmsted figured out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, which was to become a landscape architect. Olmsted practiced from the years of 1857 up until he retired in 1895. Olmsted’s two boys, adopted son John Charles and biological son Frederick La...
Thomas Edison was born in Ohio Milan, on February 11, 1847. His father and mother had seven children including Thomas. Thomas going to school at age eleven in public school but only lasted for 12 weeks. The problem he had was that he was a self-taught child. So his parents had to take him home a home school him. So his parents gave him chemistry and electronics books. Thomas was a smart kid growing up learning fast. But before he had plunged into great books before he was 12. Later Thomas is mother had got him chemicals to have him experiment. His first laboratory was the cellar of his family’s house. As he learned more he had
One thunderous afternoon on June 1752, Benjamin Franklin conducted what is known today as the “Kite Experiment”. He wanted to prove that if one object was electrical, the energy from that object could be transferred to another object, therefore being classified as electricity and lightning. With his son William, Ben took a string and attached the kite to it, then he attached an iron key to the kite. Next, they tied a thin metal wire from the key and put the wire inside a Leyden jar which stored all the electrical charge. His experiment profitably showed that his accusations were correct. Many other scientist tried the same experiment and were electrocuted, but Ben Franklin was the lucky one. He changed the world of science.
"We could describe (Heinrich) Schliemann's excavations on the hill of Hissarlik and consider their results without speaking of Troy or even alluding to it," Georges Perrot wrote in 1891 in his Journal des Savants. "Even then, they would have added a whole new chapter to the history of civilization, the history of art" (qtd. in Duchêne 87). Heinrich Schliemann's life is the stuff fairy tales are made of. A poor, uneducated, and motherless boy rises through his hard work and parsimonious lifestyle to the heights of wealth (Burg 1,2). He travels the world and learns its languages ("Heinrich Schliemann"), takes a beautiful Greek bride, and together they unearth the treasures of Troy and the citadel of Agamemnon, thereby fulfilling the dream he has chased since childhood (Calder 18,19; Burg 8). Indeed, by presenting his life in romantic autobiographies as a series of adventures, starring Heinrich Schliemann as the epic hero (Duchêne 14), he ensured his status as a lasting folk hero and perennial bestseller (Calder 19).
James Clerk Maxwell may not be a household name when it comes to scientists, but his contributions to the field ranks him with some of the great scientists of all time.He is mainly known for his ground breaking work in electromagnetics, spurring a field that has given rise to many of the great accomplishments of the twentieth century.His equations, which relate the effects of electricity and magnetism to one another, are key in the development of modern relativity theory and the development electrical components and electronic systems.Like many great scientists, Maxwell was ahead of his time and his equations were not completely understood by his peers, but as science and mathematics progressed the beauty and genius behind his equations was fully revealed.
Andre Marie Ampere was a French Physicist who had many great discoveries throughout his life. He was born on January 22, 1775 in Lyon, France. Ampere created electromagnetism, which started the science of electrodynamics. With this discovery the unit measure of electromagnetism was named after ampere. Ampere was born into a very financially set middle class family. Andre’s mother was a devout woman (Shank). She was a charitable and very religious (Fox). His father (Jean Jacques Ampere) was a successful merchant. Ampere combines both of his parent’s personal traits. His father was a big admirer of Jean Jacques Rousseau, a philosophy scientist. Amperes father believed that and education should be taught from nature and not taught from a school. Jean let his son educate himself in his own well stocked library. By the age of 12 Andre taught himself advanced mathematics. Andre’s mother made his is initiated within the catholic faith along with the Enlightenment of Science (Shank).
The phenomenon called electromagnetic induction was first noticed and investigated by Michael Faraday, in 1831. Electromagnetic induction is the production of an electromotive force (emf) in a conductor as a result of a changing magnetic field about the conductor and is a very important concept. Faraday discovered that, whenever the magnetic field about an electromagnet was made to grow and collapse by closing and opening the electric circuit of which it was a part, an electric current could be detected in a separate conductor nearby. Faraday also investigated the possibility that a current could be produced by a magnetic field being placed near a coiled wire. Just placing the magnet near the wire could not produce a current. Faraday discovered that a current could be produced in this situation only if the magnet had some velocity. The magnet could be moved in either a positive or negative direction but had to be in motion to produce any current in the wire. The current in the coil is called an induced current, because the current is brought about (or “induced”) by a changing magnetic field (Cutnell and Johnson 705). The induced current is sustained by an emf. Since a source of emf is always needed to produce a current, the coil itself behaves as if it were a source of emf. The emf is known as an induced emf. Thus, a changing magnetic field induces an emf in the coil, and the emf leads to an induced current (705). He also found that moving a conductor near a stationary permanent magnet caused a current to flow in the wire as long as it was moving as in the magnet and coiled wire set-up.
Of all the scientists to emerge from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there is one whose name is known by almost all living people. While most of these do not understand this mans work, everyone knows that his impact on the world is astonishing.
He studied electrical engineering at Graz Politechnic in Graz, Austria. He then moved to Budapest to work for the American Telephone Company in 1881. He then moved to Yugoslavia, where he became chief engineer to that country's first telephone system. Later he moved to Paris to work for the Continental Edison Company. While there, he developed devices that used rotating magnetic fields, for which he later received patents.
The research that established Faraday as the foremost experimental scientist of his day was, however, in the fields of electricity and magnetism. In 1821 he plotted the magnetic field around a conductor carrying an electric current; the existence of the magnetic field had first been observed by the Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted in 1819.
There are legends surrounding the discovery of magnets. One of the more common ones is that an elderly shepherd named Magnes, was herding his sheep in Magnesia, an area in Northern Greece around 4,000 years ago. While he was herding, the nail in his shoes became stuck on the ground where his sheep were grazing. The rock was supposable named either after him or the area where the stone was discovered. ("Canada Science and Technology Museum.")